o Fleur’s surprise, Jake was the first to arrive for her Saturday night dinner party, knocking on the door at precisely eight o’clock. Although she’d taken the precaution of tucking a few bottles of Mexican beer in the refrigerator, she hadn’t really expected him to show up. He wore semirespectable dark gray slacks and a lighter gray long-sleeved dress shirt that made his eyes seem bluer. He thrust a gift-wrapped package into her hands as he took in her ivory wool trousers and copper silk blouse. “Don’t you ever look bad?”

She frowned at the package. “Should I call the bomb squad?”

“Stop being a wise-ass and open it.”

She pulled off the gift wrap to reveal a fresh new copy of The Joy of Cooking. “Just what I’ve always not wanted.”

“I knew you’d love it.”

He followed her into the kitchen, and she put the cookbook on the counter. Considering her limited personal resources, she loved how welcoming everything looked. She’d waxed the old harvest table until the dark wood shone. At a secondhand store, she’d found a chipped bean pot that she’d filled with chrysanthemums to use as a centerpiece. The store had also yielded up a charming set of faded tan and olive checked tea towels for placemats. She smelled Jake’s clean shirt and toothpaste as he came up behind her. She started as his hands lifted the back of her hair and touched her neck just beneath the collar of her blouse.

“Jeez, you’re jumpy.” Something small and cool settled between her breasts. She looked down and saw a trumpet-shaped blue and green enamel flower hanging on a thin gold chain. Tiny diamonds sparkled on the blossoms like dew. As she turned to him, she glimpsed something soft and unguarded in his expression. The present slipped away, and for a moment it seemed as if they’d returned to the time when things were easy between them. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “You didn’t have to—”

“No big deal. It’s a morning glory. I’ve noticed that’s not your best time of day.” He turned away, ending the moment.

The morning glory charm slipped from her fingers. Just for a moment, she’d let down her guard. She wouldn’t let it happen again.

“How’s come I don’t smell food?” he said. “Should I be worried?”

“The cook hasn’t arrived yet,” she replied lightly.

Right on cue, the front buzzer rang, and she hurried to open it.

“I’ve brought my own knives,” Michel said. Tonight he wore khakis and a long-sleeved blue T-shirt with a narrow piece of what had once been a man’s striped necktie sewn diagonally across the chest. He headed for the kitchen. “I found these wonderful grapes at this little hole-in-the-wall off Canal Street. Did you go to the fish market I told you about for the halibut?”

“Aye, aye, sir.” As he set the grocery bag on the counter, she saw how tired he looked, and she was glad she’d planned this evening for him. He spotted Jake.

“Michel, you remember Jake Koranda. I disarmed him at the door, so feel free to insult him as much as you want.”

Jake smiled and shook hands with Michel.

Simon arrived five minutes later. As luck would have it, he’d seen every Caliber picture and barely noticed Michel in his eagerness to talk with Jake. Michel, in the meantime, was getting ready to cook and treating Fleur to a long list of mishaps he was absolutely convinced would ruin his collection. In terms of matchmaking, the evening wasn’t getting off to a promising start.

Kissy appeared and headed for the kitchen. “Sorry I’m late, but Charlie called me from Chicago just as I was leaving.”

“Things must be improving,” Fleur said. “At least you’re talking again.”

Kissy looked glum. “I think I’ve lost my touch. No matter what I do, he—” She broke off as she saw Jake leaning against the counter. “Ohmygod.”

Fleur rescued a spoon Michel had dropped. “Kissy, meet Jake Koranda. Jake, Kissy Sue Christie.”

Kissy was all gumdrop eyes and candy apple mouth as she stared up at Jake. An oil slick of a grin spread over his face. Kissy looked like a kindergarten snack. “My pleasure.” She smiled her dippy what’s-your-name-sailor-boy smile, and Jake puffed up like a rooster.

Fleur should have been amused. Instead she felt as if she were thirteen again, taller than the other girls, gawky and awkward with bruised elbows, bandaged knees, and a face too big for her body. Kissy, on the other hand, looked like a teenage boy’s wet dream, and, before long, she and Jake were making the salad together while Simon acted as bartender. Fleur fought her jealousy as she helped Michel fix one of his signature dishes, fish with grapes in a vermouth butter sauce.

When Jake and Simon started talking about horses, Kissy slipped to Fleur’s side. “He’s even hotter in person than he is on the screen. That man belongs in the Hunk Hall of Fame.”

“His tooth is crooked,” Fleur retorted.

“I’ll bet nothing else is.”

Everyone except Fleur had a wonderful time. Michel and Simon finally began to talk over Michel’s spectacular halibut dish, and as the breadbasket made its second pass, they were listing their favorite restaurants. Before long, they’d begun a casual discussion about checking out a trendy place in the East Village. Kissy tried to catch Fleur’s eye for a congratulatory salute, but Fleur pretended not to notice.

Kissy and Jake were trading jokes as if they’d known each other for years. Then they began comparing notes about a new singer they both liked. Why didn’t they just go to bed and get it over with?

When it was time for dessert, Fleur brought out a French almond cake she’d bought that afternoon at her favorite bakery. Everyone loved it, but she could barely eat a bite. She suggested they take their Irish coffee into the living room. Kissy sat on the couch. Normally Fleur would have sat next to her, but now she grabbed one of the big floor pillows instead, leaving the rest of the couch free for Jake, who immediately claimed it.

Everyone except Fleur started arguing about the all-time best rock groups. Her unhappiness settled into a lump in the pit of her stomach that she didn’t want to examine too closely. Kissy sent her a sympathetic smile. Fleur looked away.

Kissy cleared her throat. “Fleurinda, you promised I could borrow your amber earrings. Show me where they are before I walk off without them.”

Fleur hadn’t promised Kissy any such thing, and she started to say so, only to find herself on the receiving end of one of Kissy’s steel magnolia glares. She wouldn’t put it past her former friend to stage a scene, so she rose reluctantly and followed Kissy to the bedroom.

When they got there, Kissy crossed her arms over her pillowy breasts. “You’d better get that whipped puppy look off your face right now, or I swear to God, I’m going back in that living room and French him right in front of you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kissy looked at her with disgust. “I’m about ready to give up on you. You’re twenty-six. That’s too old not to know yourself better.”

“I know myself just fine.”

Instead of responding, Kissy started tapping the toe of one bright red ballet flat. Fleur felt herself wilt. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“You should be. You’re acting crazy.”

“You’re right. And I don’t even know why.”

“Because you’re green-eyed jealous, that’s why.”

“I’m not jealous! Not the way you mean anyway.”

Kissy wasn’t having it. “Since when have you ever known me not to flirt with a good-looking guy, let alone a man like that? Yummy. And what did you do? Not one thing, that’s what. You just slinked off into the corner. I’m ashamed of you.”

Fleur was ashamed of herself, too. “It wasn’t about Jake. I’m not that stupid. It was about feeling like an overgrown teenager again.”

“I’m not buying it,” Magnolia Blossom said. “Don’t you think it’s time you stop kidding yourself and take a hard look at your feelings for that gorgeous man sitting in your living room?”

“My feelings for him are made up of dollar signs. Really, Kissy. I’ve practically lost Olivia, and the only clients who want me to represent them are ones I don’t want to represent, like that cretin Shawn Howell. Jake’s not even pretending to write, and—” She stopped. “That’s no excuse. I’m sorry, Kissy. You’re right. I’ve been acting infantile. Forgive me.”

Kiss finally softened. “All right. But only because I feel the same way every time I see you and Charlie together.”

“Charlie and me? Why?”

Kissy sighed and refused to meet Fleur’s eyes. “He likes you so much, and I know I can’t compete with you when it comes to looks. Every time I see the two of you talking, I feel like the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

Fleur didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “It seems like I’m not the only one who doesn’t know herself very well.” She gave Kissy a bear hug, then glanced at her watch. “Butch Cassidy is on television tonight. If I’m calculating right, we should be able to take a peek, then get back to the party before we’re missed. Do you want to indulge?”

“You bet.” Kissy flipped on the small television perched on a secondhand table in the corner of the bedroom. “Do you think we’re getting too old for this?”

“Probably. We should give it up for Lent.”

“Or not.”

The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang had just robbed the Overland Flyer, and Paul Newman’s Butch, along with Robert Redford’s mustachioed Sundance Kid, were drinking on the balcony of the whorehouse. Kissy and Fleur settled on the edge of the bed as the schoolteacher Etta Place climbed the steps to her small frame house, lit the lamp inside, and unfastened the top buttons of her shirtwaist. When she reached her bedroom, she pulled off the garment and hung it in the closet. Then she turned and screamed as she saw the chiseled features of the Sundance Kid staring menacingly at her from across the room.

“Keep going, Teacher Lady,” he said.

She stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. Slowly he picked up his gun and leveled it at her. “That’s okay. Don’t mind me. Keep on going.”

She hesitantly unfastened the long undergarment and then stepped out of it. Clasping it modestly in front of her, she tried to hide her eyelet-trimmed camisole from the outlaw’s eyes.

“Let down your hair,” he ordered.

She dropped the undergarment and pulled out the hairpins.

“Shake your head.”

No sensible woman was going to argue with the Sundance Kid when he had a pistol trained on her belly, and the schoolteacher did as she was told. All she had left was the camisole, and Sundance didn’t have to talk. He raised his pistol and cocked the hammer.

Etta slowly opened the low row of buttons until the camisole parted in a V. Sundance’s hands moved to his waist. He unfastened his gun belt and pushed it aside, then stood and approached her. He slipped his hands inside the open garment.

“Do you know what I wish?” Etta asked.

“What?”

“That once you’d get here on time!”

As Etta threw her arms around Redford’s neck, Fleur sighed and got up to turn off the set. “It’s hard to believe that scene was written by a man, isn’t it?”

Kissy gazed at the blank screen. “William Goldman’s a great screenwriter, but I’ll bet anything his wife wrote that scene while he was in the shower. What I wouldn’t give…”

“Uhmm. It’s the ultimate female sexual fantasy.”

“All that male sexual menace coming from a lover you know will never hurt you.” Kissy licked her lips.

Fleur touched her morning glory necklace. “Too bad they don’t make men like that anymore.”

Jake stood in the hallway outside the partially opened door and listened to the two women. He hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, but Fleur had looked funny all evening, and they were gone so long he’d decided to check up on her. Now he was sorry. This was exactly the kind of conversation a man should never hear. What did women want? In public the rhetoric was all about male sensitivity and equality, but in private, here they were, two intelligent women having orgasms over caveman macho.

Maybe he was a little jealous. He was one of the biggest box office draws of the decade, and he was living right above Fleur Savagar’s head, but all she wanted to do was take verbal potshots at him. He wondered if Redford had to put up with this kind of crap. If there was any justice in the world, Redford was sitting in front of his television someplace in Sundance, Utah, watching his wife go melty-eyed over one of Bird Dog Caliber’s rough-’em-up love scenes. The thought gave him a small moment of satisfaction, but, as he slipped away, the emotion faded. No matter how you looked at it, this wasn’t the easiest time to be a man.

The next morning Jake showed up to run with her, but as they made their way around the Central Park Reservoir, he barely spoke. She had to find some way to motivate him to at least attempt to write. When they returned to the house, she impulsively invited him in for Sunday morning breakfast. Maybe he’d be more communicative with a full stomach. But he declined.

“That’s right,” she replied coolly. “Your schedule’s been a real killer lately with all that time you’re spending pounding away at your typewriter.”

He tugged open the zipper of his sweatshirt. “You don’t know anything.”

“Are you even trying to write?”

“For your information, I’ve already filled up a legal pad.”

Jake composed at the typewriter, and she didn’t believe him. “Show me.”

He scowled and brushed past her into the house.

She showered, then slipped into jeans and her favorite cable-knit sweater. She’d been so preoccupied with Michel’s collection, Olivia’s skittishness, and trying to anticipate Alexi’s next move that she hadn’t focused on the problem over her head. Jake Koranda had made a deal with her to start writing again, and he wasn’t following through.

At ten o’clock, she went out into the front hallway and unlocked the door that led to the attic apartment. He didn’t answer when she knocked at the top of the stairs. She slipped her key in the lock.

The attic was a large, open space lit by both a skylight and smaller, rectangular windows on two sides. Fleur hadn’t been up here since Jake had moved in, and she saw that he’d furnished it sparsely with a few comfortable chairs, a bed, a long couch, and an L-shaped arrangement of desk and table that held a typewriter and a ream of paper still in its wrapper.

He had his feet propped on the desk, and he was tossing a basketball from one hand to the other. “I don’t remember inviting you in,” he said. “I don’t like interruptions when I’m working.”

“I wouldn’t dream of interrupting your creative process. Just pretend I’m not here.” She went into the small kitchen that sat behind a curve of counter and opened the cupboards until she found a can of coffee.

“Go away, Fleur. I don’t want you here.”

“I’ll leave as soon as we have a business meeting.”

“I’m not in the mood for a meeting.” The basketball passed back and forth, right palm to left.

She plugged in the coffeepot and walked over to perch on the desk. “The thing is,” she said, “you’re dead wood, and I can’t afford to have anything pulling me under right now. Everyone in town thinks you signed with me because we’re sleeping together. Only one thing’s going to stop the gossip. Another Koranda play.”

“Tear up our contract.”

She swatted the basketball from his hand. “Stop being such a crybaby.”

Easygoing, wisecracking Jake Koranda disappeared, leaving her face-to-face with Bird Dog. “Get out. This isn’t any of your goddamned business.”

She didn’t move. “Make up your mind. First you say I’m the one who blocked you, and now you tell me it’s none of my business. You can’t have it both ways.”

His feet dropped to the ground. “Out.” He grasped her arm and steered her toward the door.

She was suddenly angry, not because he was manhandling her and not even because he was threatening the future of her business, but because he was wasting his talent. “Big hotshot playwright.” She jerked away. “That typewriter has an inch of dust on it.”

“I’m not ready yet!” He stalked across the room and grabbed his jacket from a chair.

“I don’t see what’s so hard about it.” She made her way to his desk and ripped the wrapper off a ream of paper. “Anybody can put a piece of paper in a typewriter. See how I’m doing it. Nothing could be easier.”

He shoved his arms into the sleeves.

She dropped into the desk chair and flicked on the switch. The machine hummed to life. “Watch this. Act One, Scene One.” She picked out the letters on the keyboard. “Where are we, Jake? What does the stage set look like?”

“Don’t be a bitch.”

“Don’t…be…a…bitch.” She typed out the words. “Typical Koranda dialogue—tough and anti-female. What comes next?”

“Stop it, Fleur!”

“Stop…it…Fleur. Bad name choice. Too close to this amazing woman you already know.”

“Stop it!” He shot across the room. His hand came down on top of hers, jamming the keys. “This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it?”

Bird Dog had slipped away, and she saw the pain beneath his anger. “It’s not a joke,” she said softly. “It’s something you have to do.”

He didn’t move. And then he lifted his hand and brushed her hair. She closed her eyes. He pulled away and headed into the kitchen. She heard him pour a cup of coffee. Her fingers shook as she tugged the paper from the typewriter. Jake came toward her, mug in hand. She slipped in a fresh sheet of paper.

“What are you doing?” He sounded tired, a little hoarse.

She took an unsteady breath. “You’re going to write today. I’m not letting you put it off any longer. This is it.”

“Our deal’s off.” He sounded defeated. “I’m moving out of the attic.”

She hardened herself against his sadness. “I don’t care where you move. But we have an agreement, and we’re sticking to it.”

“Is that all you care about? Your two-bit agency.”

His anger was phony, and she wouldn’t let him bait her. “You’re writing today.”

He stepped behind her, set down his coffee mug, and settled his hands lightly on her shoulders. “I don’t think so.”

He lifted her hair and pressed his mouth into the softness just beneath her ear. His breath felt warm on her skin, and the soft touch of his lips made all her senses come alive. For a moment, she let herself give in to the sensations he was arousing. Just for a moment…

His hands slipped under her sweater and slid up over her bare skin to the lacy cups of her bra. He toyed with her nipples through the silk. His touch felt so good. Ripples of pleasure scuttled through her body. He unfastened the center clasp of her bra and pushed aside the cups. As he slipped up her sweater and bared her breasts, the ripples turned into waves of heat rushing through her veins. He pushed her shoulders back against the chair so her breasts tilted upward and began teasing the nipples with his thumbs. His lips caught her earlobe, then trailed along her neck. He was a master seducer playing with her body, going from one erogenous point to another as if he were following a chart in a sex manual.

Right then, she knew she was being bought.

She shoved his hands away from their carefully calculated seduction and jerked down her sweater. “You’re a real bastard.” She rose from the chair. “This was the easiest way to close me out, wasn’t it?”

He stared at a point just past her head. Doors slammed shut, shades pulled down, shutters locked tight. “Don’t push me.”

She was furious with herself for giving in so easily, furious with him, and unbearably sad. “The circle’s complete now,” she said. “You’ve played Bird Dog for so long that he’s finally taken over. He’s eating up what was left of your decency.”

He stalked across the room and pulled the door open.

She gripped the edge of the desk. “Making those crappy movies is easier than doing your real work.”

“Get out.”

“Mr. Tough Guy has a yellow streak a mile wide.” She dropped back down in the chair. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely push the typewriter keys. “Act One, Scene One, damn you…”

“You’re crazy.”

“Act One, Scene One. What’s the first line?”

“You’re out of your frigging mind!”

“Come on, you know exactly what this play’s about.”

“It’s not a play!” He stalked over to her, his expression so tormented that she winced. One of his hands knotted into a fist. “It’s a book! I have to write a book. A book about ’Nam.”

She took a deep breath. “A war book? That’s right up Bird Dog’s alley.”

His voice grew quiet. “You don’t know anything.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“You weren’t there. You wouldn’t understand.”

“You’re one of the best writers in the country. Make me understand.”

He turned his back to her. Silence fell between them. She heard the distant sound of a police siren, the rattle of a truck passing below. “You couldn’t tell them apart,” he finally said. “You had to regard everybody as the enemy.”

His voice was controlled, but it seemed to be coming from far away. He turned and looked at her as if he wanted to make certain she understood. She nodded, even though she didn’t. If what had happened in Vietnam was blocking his writing, why did he blame her?

“You’d be walking next to a rice paddy and spot a couple of little kids—four or five years old. Next thing you knew, one of them was throwing a grenade at you. Shit. What kind of war is that?”

She slipped her fingers back on the keys and began to type, trying to get it all down, hoping she was doing the right thing but not sure at all.

He didn’t seem to notice the sound of the typewriter. “The village was a VC stronghold. The guerrillas had cost us a lot of men. Some of them had been tortured, mutilated. They were our buddies…guys we’d gotten to know as well as our own family. We were supposed to go in and waste the village. The civilians knew the rules. If you weren’t guilty, don’t run! Don’t for chrissake run! Half the company was stoned or doped up—it was the only way you could make it.” He took a ragged breath. “We were airlifted to a landing strip near the village, and as soon as the strip was secure, the artillery opened up. When everything was clear, we went in. We herded them all together in the middle of the village. They didn’t run—they knew the rules—but some of them were shot anyway.” His face had grown ashen. “A little girl…she had on a ragged shirt that didn’t cover her belly, and the shirt had these little yellow ducks on it. And when it was over, and the village was burning, and somebody turned Armed Forces Vietnam on the radio and Otis Redding started singing ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay’…The little girl had flies all over her belly.”

He stabbed his hand toward the typewriter. “Did you get that part about the music? The music is important. Everybody who’s been in ’Nam remembers the music.”

“I—I don’t know. You’re going so fast.”

“Let me in.” He pushed her aside, ripped out the sheet that was in the typewriter, and inserted a new one. He shook his head once as if to clear it, and then he began to type.

She went over to the couch and waited. He didn’t take his eyes off the pages that began sliding like magic through his typewriter. The room was cool, but his forehead beaded with sweat as he punched the keys. The images he’d drawn were already etched in her brain. The village, the people, the shirt with the little yellow ducks. Something terrible had happened that day.

He didn’t notice as she slipped out of the room.

She went to dinner with Kissy that evening. When she returned, she could still hear his typewriter. She made a sandwich for him and cut a slab of the French almond cake left over from the dinner party. This time she didn’t bother to knock before she used her key.

He sat hunched over the typewriter, his face lined with fatigue. Coffee mugs and paper littered the desk. He grunted as she set the tray down and collected the cups to wash. She cleaned out the coffeepot and refilled it so it was ready to go again.

Dread had been building inside her ever since this morning. She kept thinking about Sunday Morning Eclipse and the massacre Matt had witnessed in Vietnam. Now she couldn’t stop asking a terrible question. Had Jake been a helpless witness to a massacre like the character he’d created, or had he been an active participant?

She wrapped her arms around herself and left the attic.

She received her first phone call from Dick Spano later that week. “I’ve got to find Jake.”

“He never calls me,” she said, which was literally true.

“If he does, tell him I’m looking for him.”

“I really don’t think he will.”

That evening, she went up to the attic to tell Jake about the call. His eyes were red-rimmed, his jaw covered with stubble, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept. “I don’t want to talk to anybody,” he said. “Keep them away from me, will you?”

She did her best. She put off his business manager, his lawyer, and all of their secretaries, but someone as famous as Jake couldn’t simply disappear, and after five more days passed, and the callers grew more alarmed, she knew she had to do something, so she called Dick Spano. “I’ve heard from Jake,” she said. “He’s started to write again, and he wants to hide out for a while.”

“I have to talk to him. I’ve got a deal that won’t wait. Tell me where he is.”

She tapped a pen on her desk. “I think he’s in Mexico. He wouldn’t say exactly where.”

Dick swore, then bombarded her with a long list of things she was to tell him if he called her again. She wrote them all down and tucked the note in her pocket.

October turned into November, and as the date for Michel’s fashion show drew near, the gossip about her broken contracts refused to die. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the phony stories she’d planted at the end of the summer about her relationship with Jake were continuing to damage her. The gossips said Fleur Savagar was nothing more than a washed-up fashion model trying to start a business on her back. None of the clients she’d been pursuing had signed with her, and each night she fell asleep only to jolt awake a few hours later and listen to the sound of Jake’s typewriter. In the morning, she used her key to check on him, and after a while, it became difficult to tell which of them was the more haggard.

She spent the day before Michel’s show at the hotel, scurrying between technicians and the carpenters setting up the runway. She drove everyone crazy with her insistence on security passes and guards at the door. Even Kissy lost patience with her, but everything rested on Michel’s collection, and Alexi had less than twenty-four hours to do his worst. Fleur called Michel at the Astoria factory to make sure the guards were doing their job.

“Every time I look out, they’re where they’re supposed to be,” he said.

As he hung up, she had to remind herself to breathe. She’d hired the best security company in the state. Now she had to trust them to do their job.

Willie Bonaday burped and reached into his uniform pocket for a roll of Tums. Sometimes he chewed them one after another to help pass the time until the daytime shift took over. He’d been working this job for a month now, and tonight was the last night. Willie thought it was a lot of trouble to go to for a bunch of dresses, but as long as he got his paycheck, he minded his own business.

Four of them worked each shift, and they had the place sealed up tighter than a drum. Willie sat just inside the front door of the old Astoria factory, while his partner, Andy, was at the back and two of the younger men were outside the workshop doors on the second floor where the dresses were locked up. In the morning, the boys on the day shift would accompany the big dress racks on the drive to the hotel. By evening, the job would be over.

A couple of years back, Willie had guarded Reggie Jackson. That was the kind of job he liked. When him and his brother-in-law were sitting around watching the Giants, he wanted to shoot the bull about guarding Reggie Jackson, not a bunch of dresses. Willie picked up the Daily News. As he turned to the sports section, a battered orange van with BULLDOG ELECTRONICS painted on the side drove past the front entrance. Willie didn’t notice.

The man driving the van turned into an alley across the street without even glancing at the factory. He didn’t have to. He’d driven by every night for the past week, each time in a different vehicle, and he knew exactly what he’d see. He knew about Willie, although he didn’t know his name, and he knew about the guard at the back entrance and the locked room on the second floor with the guards stationed outside. He knew about the day shift that would arrive in a few hours, and the dim interior lights kept on in the factory at night. Only the lights were important to him.

The warehouse across the street from the factory had been abandoned for years, and the rusty padlock at the back gave easily beneath the jaws of the bolt cutters. He pulled an equipment case from the van. It was heavy, but the weight didn’t bother him. When he was safely inside the warehouse, he switched on his flashlight and shone it at the floor as he walked toward the front of the building. The flashlight annoyed him. Its beam of light spread out in a smear—no clear boundaries, no precision. It was sloppy light.

Light was his specialty. Pure beams of pencil-slim light. Coherent light that didn’t spread out in undisciplined pools like a flashlight beam.

He spent nearly an hour setting up. Normally it didn’t take so long, but he’d been forced to modify his equipment with a high-powered telescope, and the mounting was difficult. He didn’t mind, though, because he liked challenges, especially ones that paid so well.

When he’d finished setting up, he cleaned his hands on the rag he carried with him and then wiped a circle in the dirty glass of the warehouse window. He took his time sighting and focusing the telescope, making certain everything was exactly the way he wanted it. He could pick out each of the tiny lead plug centers without any difficulty. They were clearer to him than if he’d been standing in the middle of that second-story room.

When he was ready, he gently pulled the switch on the laser, directing the pure beam of ruby-red light right at the lead plug that was farthest away. The plug needed only a hundred and sixty-five degrees of heat to melt, and within seconds he could see that the hot ruby light of the laser had done its work. He picked out the next plug, and it, too, dissolved under the force of the pencil-thin beam of light. In a matter of minutes, all the lead plugs had melted, and the heads of the automatic fire sprinkler system were spraying water over the racks of dresses.

Satisfied, the man packed up his equipment and left the warehouse.